There is a lot of talk about population exchange, mass migration, not sending their best, etc. To put it bluntly, it is clearly not the rocket scientist who are arriving in the suburbs of the West, building mosques for oil money, demanding regulations and exemptions, subsidised and often supported by taxpayers. Nor is it the factory workers or craftsmen, but a modern lumpen proletariat that finds itself in a constructed exclusion. Not all, of course – for those who notice words and are unable to generalise – no, not all. But many, enough.
Moreover, these are invited migrants, as many Western countries opened their arms to receive immigrants and supposed refugees from the Middle East, after the US and its allies bombed the region to smithereens, tore up old social orders and ties, and then left the people behind.
There is also a contradiction between the Western leadership and its grassroots. The latter rarely want to host all these newcomers. Not because they directly dislike people from other countries, but mostly to be left alone and to protect and develop their own culture, which becomes impossible when the migrants soon take up 20-30% of the population and spread their own culture, which is often diametrically opposed to the European one, including the view of women, the legal system, religion and much more.
Well, we already know all this. And we are seeing more and more popular uprisings against the political leadership, which remarkably often appears to be completely unaware of the needs of ordinary people, as if they were not working for their citizens, but against them. Which is strange and anomalous to how our democratic systems were meant to work. Where all power emanates from the people.
To partially contradict my own reasoning, since we like to turn things around, I would point out that population movements do not always have to be negative. There can even be positive effects of migration and exchanges.
I’ve mentioned this before, let’s start with the Greek colonisation of the Mediterranean around 800 BC, which spread trade, culture and civilisation. Or the Germanic conquest of the British Isles around 700 AD, where Angles and Saxons took over and established kingdoms in the former Celtic area. The indigenous people are sometimes described as lazy and inept by the newcomers, who soon built the foundations of what would become the British Empire. We also see enterprising northerners in the east, who built kingdoms inside the Slavic territories, establishing cities and trade routes. Norman Sicily was equally successful, as were many of the European colonies founded around the world after Columbus rediscovered America.
Often people talk about the guilt of colonialism, exploiting the natives, and taking their natural resources, something the natives themselves did not care about. What is iron, oil or uranium worth to someone at the Neolithic stage? But Westerners also built schools, hospitals, wells, bridges, roads, power lines, etc. and only after that did the indigenous people realise the value of the iron, oil and uranium. In other words, it was the Europeans who made them aware of this. It was Europeans who shared their culture and civilisation. Without it, they could not value their potential natural resources. Their own native culture did not have the same scale of values as the European one.
Then, of course, there were many colonies that were not fertile, that did not have natural resources. The Europeans built schools, hospitals, roads and many other things anyway. It was seen as the duty of Europeans to spread their civilisation. And we see many people south of the equator culturally appropriating European clothing, fashion, architecture and lifestyle. And they still do so today. They also move to Europe, and try to establish themselves in its cultural community.
Like I said, let’s not generalise too much, but let’s talk about individuals. If we have a collection of talented individuals who go to countries where they appear unique because of their talent and expertise, they may have a duty to further develop these regions. Or should we have stayed away from them? Left these countries alone at the Neolithic or Chalcolithic stage? As some kind of experimental areas, which we sometimes monitor from far away from the coast or from aeroplanes, to see how they are doing? If they can create a higher civilisation without our help, and only make contact with them when they reach our level? Then we can socialise as equals? Is that even a possible scenario? Where we don’t give them medicines, hospitals, schools and so on?
